The Smoke & Mirrors of ECO7 metering

dogshome

Personally I've never had an ECO7 meter, but son is on a 2 year contract and has rented a cottage, ( Eastern Region ), which is all electric with an ECO7 meter.

When exploring his supplier options I realised that the ECO7 Daytime Rates offered are more costly than those for customers with a Standard meter, and this differential applies for the same tariff, from the same supplier, in the same region - This goes for entire industry and it's not only the Kwh price that is higher, in some cases the Daily Standing Charge is also dearer

This means that the price of the 'Cheap' Nightrate Kwh's is not what it seems, and 'Extra' costs are hidden away.

Years ago I did business with the now defunct Eastern Electricity Board, and know for certain the original ECO7 tariffs charged 'Standard' rate for Daytime use, with a reduced rate for Nightime use.

The whole point of the system was to get customers to use Electricity at Night, when with very low demand the fossil fuel Power Stations had to keep running with few customers

The position is the same today - Fossil/Atomic Power generators still have to run 24/7 and Windfarms keep spinning

The wholesale energy market has different prices for the time of day, and as suppliers are charging Standard meter owners XX 24/7 for power, WHY are they charging XX+Y to Eco7 users when the supplier is paying the same price for daytime electricity supplied to Standard & ECO7 meters ?

The suppliers listed on the table were chosen at random - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly - Personally, I was surprised at Yorkshire Energy who I thought were in the 'Good' camp, till I saw that they load the Daily Service Charge by 18% for ECO7 users

MWT

dogshome said:

WHY are they charging XX+Y to Eco7 users when the supplier is paying the same price for daytime electricity supplied to Standard & ECO7 meters ? 

Because the standard tariff is a blend of all the rates throughout the day but the E7 day tariff is a blend of just the day time rates which include the much more costly 4-7pm period.

matelodave

And your point is? Unfortunately that's the way the energy market works nowadays.

Just be thankful that he's not on a complex metering tariff with two meters, the rates are are truly horrendous for some people, especially those up in Scotland.

However based on your table why does anyone stay with British Gas?

RelievedSheff

We are with British Gas and our rates are cheaper then those quoted in the table above.

Talldave

For any one of these suppliers, you can work out the break even point of night time vs day time usage in order to see whether it's worth going E7 or not.  If not, just go on non-E7 with the E7 meter and the supplier will just add the two readings together [cue several posts about the large number of suppliers who won't do this - for reference I've never had a refusal to do it in 30+ years].

A year ago I was on a Yorkshire Energy E7 tariff, and that was in a house with gas heating & hot water and relatively average electricity usage.  The break even point was 15% night use, which we easily met without any lifestyle changes.

Gerry1

It's always been like this, right back to the days of the Electricity Boards.  Presumably the idea was to make it worthwhile only if you had storage heaters, otherwise everyone would have moved to E7 without shifting any consumption away from the peak periods, whitch would have defeated its intended purpose.

dogshome

Gerry1  It wasn't like this under the Electricity Boards - I ought to know as I was doing the publicity, and as a side comment the EB's were offering housing developers Free connections to their builds if they signed an agreement not to install GAS

Talldave With both Gas & ECO7 you are fortunate and can make choices, but there are thousands of dwellings locked into ECO7 with no choice but to pay that piper, with it's High day rates - and a higher Service Charge, Justify that

RelievedSheff I'm sure you had a lower deal from BG, but the table quotes tariffs that are on offer today for the Eastern region

Matelodave My heart goes out to those on E10 tariffs and their withdrawal - If it's any comfort I'm of the opinion we are the UK, and that energy supplies to remote areas should have subsidies to bring them somewhere in line with populated areas

MWT Of course ECO7 Day rates include the high volume use of 4pm - 7pm, but so do the cheaper Standard Meter tariffs, and the suppliers benifit from the fact that ECO7 households Switch a big chunk of their useage to the cheaper overnight wholesale rates

Sorry if I've offended any of the above, but my original post was to point out the 'Extra' costs sneakily added to ECO7 customers bills and start a wave of objections.

ECO& heating is cheap to install, and therefore attractive to Landlords & Builders, but not in all cases, the occupiers are in the lower earnings bracket and faced with heating bills way in excess of £1200 for an average dwelling.

Some time ago, from posts on this site, it became apparent that SSE, (One of the BIG 6), were adopting Spark Energies method of gaining customers - Paying a bung to Letting Agents.

I wrote to Ofgem about this and though I received no reply, there were no more posts about SSE's sales campaign

I'll be writing to Ofgem about ECO7, so if you think I'm right and have pertinent comment - PLEASE POST

MWT

dogshome said:

Sorry if I've offended any of the above, but my original post was to point out the 'Extra' costs sneakily added to ECO7 customers bills and start a wave of objections.

It isn't 'sneaky' though it is just maths.

The non-E7 tariff is lower because you get the benefit of the cheap night hours to lower the average.

The day-rate for E7 is higher because you have no cheap night rate hours to offset the blended total.

You can't have a cheap night rate and then set the day rate to be the same as the single rate tariff...

Talldave

Sorry, my point was that if a home with gas heating can benefit from E7, then an electric only home makes big gains over a non-E7 tariff. So an electric only home would pay more without E7, ergo E7 is a positive thing.

Don't get bogged down looking at standing charges.  All that matters is total cost. If you use E7 as intended,  it's a  no-brainer. Unless you use BG in which case you need serious help!!!!